Our Dubious Crusade In Colombia

July 02, 1990|By Peter Bourne.

Last August, presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan was killed, only the latest distinguished Colombian to be gunned down by the drug cartel. Capitalizing on the legitimate outrage felt in his nation, President Virgilio Barco announced an all-out war against the drug barons, a move enthusiastically embraced in Washington, where the Reagan and Bush

administrations long had criticized Bogota for failing to do enough to counter the flow of drugs to the U.S.

Barco`s admirable efforts have had only a modest impact on solving the drug problem in the United States, but a devastating effect on Colombian society. The massive infusion of U.S. arms has served only to augment what amounts to a civil war in the troubled Andean country. Unfortunately, the drug cartels easily have matched the government in the arms race, supplied by corrupt local officials and international arms merchants, along with foreign mercenaries who have taught the use of sophisticated weaponry.

The one incontestable result of Washington`s converting a legitimate police action to a holy war is that the number of Colombians being

slaughtered-police and military, government officials and innocent civilians- has soared. At the same time, the country`s notorious right-wing death squads have resurfaced, using the cover of the drug war to murder hundreds of leftist political opponents, striking at the heart of Colombia`s democratic system.

Human rights observance, a concept never held in high esteem by the authorities, is being dismissed as an impediment to the drug war.

Drug-related corruption long has been an endemic problem in Colombia, and the escalation of violence has reduced the practice, except for bloating the size of the bribes. Today, the very fabric of the country`s civic tradition is being eaten away not only by drugs but by the measures intended to counter them.

The most controversial aspect of Colombia`s drug strategy is its agreement to extradite to the U.S. individuals indicted for drug trafficking, but who never operated here. An unprecedented relinquishment of sovereignty, extradition has become a matter of shame for many patriotic Colombians. It is also the reason the drug cartels engage in unrestricted violence. Congress would never permit a U.S. administration to surrender the rights of its citizens to another country; a strong case could be made that Bogota agreed to do so only under extreme duress.

For at least a decade, the illegal drug trade has provided the major source of foreign exchange for the Colombian economy, save for coffee. Ironically, while we cajoled Bogota to cut the flow of drugs, last July we helped cut by half the price Colombian coffee producers obtain from consuming nations.

Similarly, while the fundamental rationale for Washington`s drug effort is the need to protect the health of America`s youth, it has ignored that more Colombians die from the effects of U.S. tobacco products than the number of Americans who die from Colombian cocaine. Yet we are unwilling to lift even a twig to curb the trafficking of this drug whose cultivation is subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

We must come to see that the fundamental issue is not only Washington`s double standards, but also whether we expect too much of the Colombians and too little of ourselves in curbing consumption.

Of greater concern to many Latin Americans than the righteous crusade we have fostered in the Andes is whether, with the decline of the Cold War, the

``drug threat`` will increasingly replace communism as the justification for U.S. intervention in the hemisphere. Our willingness to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of innocent Panamanians last December to apprehend one tainted individual only fuels that belief.

Washington has acknowledged that plans to establish a major U.S. military beachhead in Peru are as much aimed at the leftist guerrillas as at drug traffickers. The recent election of the country`s new president may force Washington to change that policy; yet as the region tries to strengthen its weak democratic institutions, many see the Bush administration`s drug obsession as this decade`s reason for fearing the landing of U.S. troops.

The White House`s effort to counter America`s drug problem has failed, with the Bush administration finding it more expedient to carry on the conflict through weak societies hardly capable of maintaining such a struggle without jeopardizing their own vital institutions.